Tag Archives: Politics

In this last week, there has been an uptick in the intensity and urgency coming from both sides as Tuesday’s election approaches.

I have noticed, as I have been listening to and reading some of the chatter about the election, that “values voting” has risen quietly to the surface. These “values” are, at least according to the recent ad released by Mike Huckabee, as “Marriage. Life. Freedom.” (Consequently, the Mike Huckabee ad was an ad that came out during the summer, funded by the group Catholics Called to Witness.)

When these values are listed, we are immediately supposed to know that the most important and dangerous issues facing us as a nation are gay couples who wish to be recognized by the state, abortion (which has been legal for forty years) and religious liberty. Religious liberty being that value that is already written in the constitution.

I have become increasingly frustrated with these “values,” and the claim that many Christians make that these are the only values that matter. Especially since, as a lifelong Christian, and a “values voter” myself, I cannot recognize any of these values as actually having any urgency.

Instead, when I go to the polls, the “value” that I will use to make my decision is that of grace.

Grace, of course, is a biblical value. Paul, in particular, is quite pushy in the grace department, which makes him rather soft on crime/sin. “You are not under the law, but under grace.” (Romans 6:14) Being bound by grace means that we (Christians) are bound to Jesus Christ, who gave us the “free gift of eternal life.” (Romans 6:23) This also frees us from the rather dire consequences of our actions, namely death for sin.

Voting for grace means ignoring the call for individual responsibility, because grace undermines individual responsibility entirely. In the system of individual responsibility, each of us is on the hook for all of the decisions we make, including the bad ones. Under grace, there are still consequences for our actions, but those consequences are softened. When we sin, we often have to deal with the immediate consequences of our actions, but we are offered opportunity for grace and forgiveness.

Our country is on an “individual responsibility” kick. There is a belief permeating our politics that whatever someone’s station in life, they earned it absolutely and without question. This seems true for the very poor as well as the very wealthy. This position is naive at best. Most of us who are wealthy are not wealthy just because we worked hard. Lots of people work hard who are not wealthy. The wealthy are wealthy because, somewhere along the line, someone helped them. It doesn’t mean that they haven’t made good decisions or choices. Many have. But wealthy people are not islands. And lots of people make wise choices.

Likewise, those of us who are poor are not poor just because we are lazy and dependant on the government. Lots of people are lazy and don’t end up completely destitute. More likely, those of us who are poor are poor because we are trapped in a system. The system is particularly hard on those who are physically and mentally disabled. Other people who are poor have simply encountered bad luck. To be sure, some poor people have made bad choices. But lots of people make bad choices.

Voting on grace means that I believe that our fortunes are shared – both good and bad. When my neighbor has to sleep outside because he does not have a home to go to, that is on me. (About 3.5 million of our neighbors every year experience homelessness.) When my neighbor gets sick, it is my responsibility to make sure that she is cared for. (About 46 million of our neighbors are still without health insurance.)

Many pundits have claimed that this election is more about the economy than it is about values. They say this as if the economy is without values. This election, I intend to vote for grace. This means voting for an economy that will care for the poor, the sick, and the displaced. This means ignoring the false ideals of individual responsibility and realizing that I am my brother’s keeper. Jesus Christ gave freely his own life so that I might live. The very least I can do is give a few tax dollars so that the poor might eat.

In it, Op-Ed columnist Nicholas Kristof, along with his college roommate, Scott, tells the story of how Scott was diagnosed with prostate cancer. To give a quick and unfair summary (you should go read the piece yourself, if you haven’t), Scott quit his job, and to save money, he quit health insurance. He did not get annual physicals. He ignored early signs of a potentially serious problem. He finally got treatment when he spiked a fever and his health was obviously deteriorating. Scott had Stave IV prostate cancer, a diagnosis that likely could have been avoided if he had sought regular preventative care. (Prostate cancer, if caught early, is often something that men live with. It can be slowed and contained in many cases.)

So today, Scott is still uninsured, but is being treated for his cancer. His medical bills are in excess of half a million dollars right now, and he has qualified for charity care. The hospital is covering his expenses. Some doctors are intentionally not billing him. He is being taken care of.

Now, let’s be clear here. Scott made a stupid and irresponsible series of decisions. He could have afforded health insurance, but chose not to get it, due to the cost. Ditto for regular physicals. Ditto for getting early symptoms checked out. At ever step of the way, he made the decision that most benefited his short-term financial desires, without taking into consideration the very real financial (as well as physical) risks. He knows he made the wrong choices. He admits it. And he very well may pay with his life.

In the piece, Kristof asks whether we want to live in a country where a person’s mistake or irresponsible behavior lands him with a death sentence. He writes, “We all make mistakes, and a humane government tries to compensate for our misjudgments. That’s why highways have guardrails, why drivers must wear seat belts, why police officers pull over speeders, why we have fire codes. In other modern countries, Scott would have been insured, and his cancer would have been much more likely to be detected in time for effective treatment.”

The response to this article has been, not surprisingly, mixed. Some (lefties like me) say that this is the reason that we need affordable health care to be available to all people in the United States.

(Side note, Scott could have afforded insurance, and chose not to buy it. There are many Americans who are not so fortunate as to be able to afford insurance.)

Now, here’s the thing. Some of the people responding with the hard-line responsibility jargon are also those who are deeply committed Christians. I do not mean this in an ironic sense. They are compassionate in their private lives. They love God. They care for their neighbors. The believe and depend on the grace of Jesus Christ.

And they are undeserving of that grace.

“But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:21-24

Most Christians believe, in one way or another, that they are ultimately dependent upon the grace of God. It is a grace that is given freely. We acknowledge that we are sinners, and that we are ultimately undeserving of the grace that is given.

Why, then, do we insist on personal responsibility when we are all recipients of grace of which we are fundamentally undeserving?

When I was in high school, the phrase WWJD became popular. “What would Jesus do?” became the popular question to ask. The answer was often some variation of “be nicer.” It was important to show compassion and love.

“Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”” Matthew 19:21

Jesus sets up a prerequisite for those who would follow him. FIRST, you care for the poor. You sell ALL YOU HAVE and you give the money to the poor. You do not, presumably, ask why the poor are poor, or accuse them of laziness. You give them your money. THEN you follow Jesus.

I will say this. I have fallen short of this prerequisite. I have a lot of stuff. I make sure that I am taken care of before I give a buck to the homeless guy in the Kroger parking lot. Then, if I do give a buck, I usually assume that he is undeserving of that dollar, because he’ll probably spend it on booze.

I fall short all the time. I make mistakes. I am a sinner. And I am thankful for the grace of God. I know that forgiveness is a possibility for me, though I have done nothing in my own life that actually merits that forgiveness.

Why are we content to live in a country in which grace cannot be extended to those who live in it? The Lord’s prayer asks, “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

We all have debts; whether they are spiritual, financial, or personal, they are there. And many of us count on pure grace for forgiveness. Because we know that we cannot possibly earn that grace. We are too far in debt.

The difference seems to be, in the case of much of the Christian Right, that grace and salvation can be extended to those in the great hereafter, but so long as we have flesh on our bones and blood in our veins, each of us is on his or her own.

When it comes to health insurance, or food stamps, or housing, or childcare, the Christian (and Corporate Capitalist) Right seems to forget the grace that is freely given and insist that everyone must take responsibility. No really. Live with the consequences of your choices, even if those consequences are death. The ideology that Mitt Romney is putting forth in his presidential campaign is the super individual. We are all responsible only for our own, individual actions and decisions. If someone makes a poor choice, so be it. Let him rot.

You know, treasure in heaven.

And if you don’t have health insurance, I guess you’ll cash in on that treasure a lot sooner than those of us who have made all of the right decisions.

Today is a day for… I don’t even know. Justice is not quite the word, because when it comes to sexual abuse against children, there is very little justice that can actually be achieved. I have in mind the image of Lady Justice, blindfolded, holding the balanced scales. In cases of sexual abuse against young people, there is simply no balance possible. So, this is a day for a moderate kind of recognition of the real-life consequences of the actions of those who perpetrate abuse as well as those who work to shield the perpetrators from the consequences of their actions.

Yesterday, the NCAA announced sanctions against Penn State University for the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal. A $60 million fine. Vacating a decade’s worth of victories for the Penn State football team and their coach Joe Paterno. A ban on post-season play for four years. And though it was not part of the sanctions, Penn State removed the statue of Joe Paterno that stood outside of Beaver Stadium.

There is a saying in 12-step circles that it is right to allow an addict to have the benefit of his or her own consequences. In the case of addicts, this means that the family members and friends are doing the addict a disservice by shielding him or her from the consequences of her or his destructive behavior. And the truth is, the consequences remain, even when the addict is shielded from them. Instead of the addict suffering the consequences, often times, the consequences fall to the children or other family members. This is neither just nor healthy, and the fallout almost always does more damage than if the addict had been allowed to experience the consequences herself.

What we are seeing at Penn State is the fallout after entirely too much time, energy, and money was spent shielding Jerry Sandusky from the consequences of his destructive behavior. NPR ran a piece this morning in which some students were upset that they are being penalized for Sandusky’s actions. And, of course, they have the right to be angry. They are experiencing the fallout of an extended delay of consequences. But let us be clear. The NCAA is not the bad guy here. There is plenty of blame and anger to be spread around, but it ought not be directed at those who are finally enforcing consequences for a decade of cover-up. The fallout always happens, and the fallout is not necessarily just.

It is for this reason that I have to wonder when the fallout will come down in the Catholic Church, and who will suffer the consequences.

Today Monsignor William Lynn sentenced. Last week, Monsignor Lynn was found guilty of child endangerment for participating in a cover-up of sexual abuse. Let’s make this clear. Monsignor Lynn allowed priests he knew to be predators to continue to minister to children.

His sentence is 3-6 years. Now, apparently, the defense lawyers are appealing the court’s decision, and the appeal has a significant chance of being successful. The reasoning behind the appeal is that Monsignor Lynn never directly supervised children.

I fear that we have not yet begun to see the real fallout from the abuse dolled out by predatory priests and the cover-up that extends all the way up the ladder to the Vatican. At Penn State, after a decade of sexual abuse perpetrated by one man, the university cleaned house, and the fallout is to the tune of $60 million, and other sanctions, most of which will be felt rather acutely by the students who had nothing to do with the abuse. In the Catholic Church, we are looking at decades of abuse by who-knows-how-many priests, and what we see most often is a single diocese making token settlements to a group of abuse victims.

All actions have consequences, and when the offender is shielded from the consequences of his or her actions, there is always someone else who ends up bearing the brunt of it. I don’t yet know how to predict who will bear the brunt of the fallout from the Catholic Church’s efforts to keep the misconduct of its priests quiet and secret.

“Let the children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.”

Now we are approaching Mother’s Day, and what would the “holiday” be without an ugly rehashing of the dramaz from the Romney campaign. (To be fair, this is paid for by the “Non-coordinating” Super PAC, Restore Our Future.) Watch, and enjoy.

I don’t really have anything to say about this right now that I have not already said.

But I will say this:

As the Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney took about 500 police officers off the streets. So Happy Mother’s Day, to you mothers who live in dangerous parts of town. Just teach your kids how to duck and cover.

During his term as Governor, Mr. Romney also made cuts to the budget of fire safety equipment – about $2.5 million. So Happy Mother’s Day. Send your kids to school with their own fire extinguishers.

As President, Mr. Romney claims that he would find $500 billion to cut from the federal budget, most of which would come from social programs such as Medicaid. So Happy Mother’s Day, poor working women. Here’s hoping your kids don’t get sick this year.

I have been following, with some interest, the story of Robert Champion, the Florida A&M University (FAMU) drum major who was beaten to death on a charter bus by fellow band members

His death was ruled a homicide by medical examiners, who found bruising on his chest, arms, abdomen, and back. He suffered internal bleeding and shock. His injuries – injuries caused by the hands of (marching) band members – were fatal.

Mr. Champion’s death has been stated as the product of hazing at FAMU. He was beaten to death while he was attempting to win the respect of his peers. This tragedy, says the media, exposes the general culture of hazing at FAMU, and demonstrates just how ugly and dangerous it is.

When I was in middle school, I was bullied. I was threatened. I was verbally harassed by a fellow student who made me not want to change my clothes for gym class. I have experienced (and survived) bullying. I get the anguish that goes along with bullying, and I am completely sympathetic to the kids who have been seriously bullied to the point where they feel the only way out is to hurt themselves. I am appalled by bullying, and I fear the escalation of bullying that the internet and Facebook allows.

I have also experienced hazing, to a degree. I was in the marching band in high school, and at band camp, upperclassmen were given authority to dress us up funny, or make us wear signs, or humiliate us in various ways. I believe I was made to wear a pair of tighty-whiteys over my clothes for a day wearing a sign that said… something? I don’t remember. I have never been physically abused as a part of a hazing ritual, but I nonetheless feel that any hazing is an inappropriate way to facilitate group loyalty and cohesion.

I remember at time when hazing got a lot of attention, because hazing often goes too far. People get hurt. People get raped. People get killed. So hazing was the crime du jour.

These days, bullying is the crime du jour. Hazing is not bad enough on its own. Now hazing has to be bullying. Because bullying often goes too far. People get hurt, and people die. This makes bullying the crime du jour.

So now, I want to call “Bullshit.” When a student is beaten to death, it may be a hazing ritual gone to far, but it is also assault, battery, and murder. When a student is hazed, it is not bullying. It is hazing.

Bullying and hazing are bad enough in their own right. But there comes a point where hazing is not longer hazing and bullying is no longer bullying. Someone has decided that bullying is the worst possible offense that a person can commit, and I am here to say: IT IS NOT! Bullying sucks. Being bullied sucks. But bullying to the extent of bodily harm and/or suicide is harassment.

Likewise, hazing sucks. When hazing involved one student being beaten to death by 13 others, it is assault. It is murder.

Hazing and bullying are both problematic in their own right. But naming hazing bullying does not actually get to the heart of the problem. The fundamental problem is violence – direct and intentional violence – against a fellow human being. Whatever we call it, Robert Champion is still dead, and it is still – and will always be – a useless tragedy.

By now, most of us have heard the Hilary Rosen gaff that Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life,” and the shit storm that ensued.

And now, as usual, the coverage of the gaff itself has clouded the actual point that Hilary Rosen was trying to make.

You see, Ms. Rosen was not attempting to make the claim that mothering is not a legitimate and (for some people) rewarding life choice, as many of her critics allege. Instead, Ms. Rosen was pointing out the fallacy that Mitt Romney has fallen into, namely, holding up his wife as an example of an average American woman. Ann Romney may be a wonderful mother who has worked hard to become a wonderful mother to her five children (I have absolutely no means to know what kind of mother she is – also, THAT’S NOT THE POINT), but one thing she is not: average. Mrs. Romney may have informed opinions about the economy and how the government can best support women, but again, she is not a representative of the average American woman.

I appreciate the plight of the stay-at-home mom. I really do. I am a work-from-home mom myself, and so I understand that it is work – in the sense that staying at home with kids does not constitute sitting on the couch, eating bon-bons and watching questionable daytime television all day. It is exhausting and demanding and under appreciated and certainly not financially rewarding. (Imagine if mothering were covered, say, under the Ledbetter Act.)

The trouble I have with the media’s (and the online MOMMY WARS) response to Ms. Rosen’s gaff is that they are missing the fact that even the choice to stay at home with your kids is an incredibly privileged position. Most households require two incomes to really function. I work at home largely so that we don’t have to pay for child care. But between my income and David’s income, there are months when we squeak by. AND WE ARE NOT POOR. We’re just… doing okay. Mrs. Romney may have worked every day (the work of being a mother), but I guarantee that she never had to give up movie night with her husband because they couldn’t afford a babysitter. She never had to make a choice between sending a sick kid to day care or staying home and possibly getting fired from a job that she could not afford to lose. She never had to take her child to the emergency room and wonder how in the world she was going to pay for it.

[Also, (and I don’t mean to put too fine a point on it), Mrs. Romney responded to Ms. Rosen’s gaff by claiming that “motherhood” has been her “career.” In fact, this is not the case. You see, a career includes the possibility for advancement and/or progress. So, unless Mrs. Romney climbed the corporate ladder of her household to become the head wife and mother, then being a stay-at-home mother is not her career. It is her work, her vocation, her calling. But it is not her career.]

The problem here is that Ms. Rosen’s statement has been made (by the media and the Romney campaign) into a statement about motherhood. It was not. Ms. Rosen’s statement was actually a statement about economic disparity. Mitt Romney has been pointing to his wife not as an informed expert, but rather as a person who, because she is a woman, knows “women.” Ms. Rosen’s poor word choice does not change the fact that Mitt Romney’s wife does not actually stand in solidarity with women who have had to make impossible decisions for their families because their economic position does not allow them the luxury of real choice.

I’ve seen the phrase “Mothers need to stick together” splashed across the internet lately in response to this whole mess. And I think that is true to a certain extent. I believe that those of us who have the choice to take maternity leave or to stay at home with our kids or who never have to carry our sick kid to the emergency room knowing that we can’t pay for the treatment that they will get – we have the responsibility to stand in some kind of solidarity with the mothers who have to make the impossible decisions.

Mitt Romney and his campaign are proposing a budget that would cut programs like Medicaid and food stamps. This means that the mothers who have to make the impossible decisions will find themselves stranded. Mrs. Romney may be a mother, but she does not stand on the side of the mothers who really need support and solidarity.

On Monday, the Supreme Court released a decision – about strip searching. In this 5-4 decision – majority opinion written by Justice Kennedy – the Court affirmed that jail strip searches do not require reasonable suspicion, at least for individuals who are being admitted into general population. (Read all about the case at www.scotusblog.com.) These “strip searches” are actually equivalent to body cavity searches – displaying genitals, “squat and spread,” without reasonable suspicion or a probable cause hearing. The only thing required is the word of an arresting officer – for any offense. (Jay walking, failing to return library books, or failing to use a turn signal could now legally result in a strip/body cavity search.) The reasoning behind this decision is that any person who is arrested could potentially be smuggling drugs or weapons into the jail. Therefore, according to Justice Kennedy, it is appropriate for every person brought into jail, even for a non-criminal offense, to be treated as if they are smuggling drugs or weapons into jail. These, by the way, are people who are legally being presumed innocent, and some of them (as in the case of the defendant in this Supreme Court case) actually are innocent.

Yesterday, I was driving to the doctor, because Beckett had a fever of unknown origin that had reached a nice 103.6 degrees the night before. It turned out to be nothing, but as I was driving there, I turned on some conservative talk radio. (I occasionally turn on the conservative radio to listen to what the other side is saying.) Anyway, the host was discussing the technology that is now available to police that allows them to track cell phones without warrant. That means, if you carry a cell phone with you, the police can legally track your physical location for an extended period of time, without demonstrating probable cause or obtaining a warrant. A woman phoned in to sing the praises of this technology, stating that “with so many bad people out there today, isn’t it a wonderful thing that the police can round up all of the information available, and then sort out the bad guys?” Again, the desire is to treat everyone (at least everyone who owns a cell phone) as if they are criminal.

I know it is old-hat by now to talk about the TSA and the increasingly invasive searches that go on just to board an overly-crowded airplane these days, but I want to tell just a quick story about traveling with my daughter alone for the first time. Maggie was probably about 6 months old. I had her in the Ergo carrier, and I struggled to get through the line. When I went through security, I forgot to take a water bottle out of my bag. The search that ensued was, extreme I think, and a little embarrassing. Maggie and I were both patted down and swabbed for explosives. My bags were dumped out and searched, complete with maxi pads falling on the floor. When the search was finished, I had to take my things to the side and try to repack my bag before I got o the plane. Now, this was nearly two years ago, and I know that the TSA workers were merely doing their job. But their job is to treat every person who wants to get on a plane as if they are intending to blow up the plane, when of course, most of us are merely trying to get where we’re going.

I am a big fan of Free Range Kids, the blog and the book written by Lenore Skenazy. Her claim is that, although the rates of violent crime are lower now than they have been in half a century, parents (and adults in general) are convinced that it is more dangerous for kids today. This is partly due to the 24-hour news cycle that publicizes every abduction case and makes it seem as if pedophiles and murderers lurk around every corner. This is also because we have increasingly moved toward a what-if mentality. “Anything could happen,” people are known to say. Kids are not allowed to play unsupervised until they’re 14 years old. We walk through public places and feel scared if a stranger (especially a man) smiles at our kids. All adults, and indeed all people, are treated first with suspicion.

I started this post out with the statement that I wanted to say something about fear. And this is what I want to say. We live in fear of our neighbors. Increasingly, we are living with a deep suspicion of those around us. And here is the biggest problem with that, as far as I’m concerned: the African proverb says “It takes a village to raise a child.” The fear and suspicion is growing and causing us to build up walls between us and the people in our lives who would potentially make our lives better and easier. We are careening toward lives where all we can do is huddle in our houses, praying that the pedophiles and murderers and terrorists don’t get us or our kids. That used to be the way crazy people lived. Now it’s looking more and more like the “reasonable” and “safe” choice.

I don’t know what the solution is, but I can tell you this: I don’t want my kids to grow up seeing me suspicious of every human being I encounter. I want my kids to know that they are safe with other people. I want them to learn to take acceptable risk, and I want them to know that some risks are always worth taking. I want to live in a world that is just, not just safe, and I want my kids to live in that world too. So I am going to reject the fear as best I can, and let my kids grow up in the village.